Choicest e-mail on Bluest Eye

I received lots of email last week after I defended
The Bluest Eye, a novel that two narrow-minded members of the State Board of Education
wants to keep high school kids from reading.

None of the email was sympathetic to the school board members, Debe Terhar and Mark Smith. So
I'll take that as a hopeful sign.

The
Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, an Ohio native who has won the Nobel Prize, is a searing look
at life for African-American girls in the 1930s. I highly recommend it for anyone who isn't afraid
of literature. And if that doesn't describe every high school kid in Ohio, then the State School
Board is doing a lousy job of educating them.

Here are some excerpts of what people had to say:

Thank you from a retired English teacher. If our Ohio students are to compete with other
students from around the United States and the world, we must teach them ALL of the banned books as
well as others which might push us out of our comfort zones. Thank you for standing up for
teaching so our kids will learn about life.

--
Diane McGregor

It seems to me like one more attempt to keep students stupid so that they will listen to and
believe anything they are told without question. I am reminded of a Methodist minister who was
nearly run out of town (small) because he had a copy of the Manifesto in his library - this was in
the '50's, mind you. As a former educator, it makes me sad and angry that the conservative element
is taking over the education of our young people. From where are our new, well-informed, educated,
and skeptical leaders coming?

-- Linda Mercer

Shame on us for allowing these people to set policy for our schools. No wonder our public
schools are a mess and our children are struggling to be well educated.

-- Bobbie Falquet

Good Lord, she is Ohio's Nobel medalist. She's standing shoulder to shoulder with
Hemingway, Faulkner and O'Neill. For that reason only, all high school students in the state
should be reading her work.

-- Rebekah Dodson

I was deeply involved with the Kanawha County, W. Va. textbook controversy of 1973. It's very
disturbing that 40 years later in Ohio, which I consider much more enlightened, that we have
self-proclaimed censors like Terhar and Smith getting out the book-burning torches.

Ted, my boss in 1973 was a Hungarian-born Jew with a number tattooed on his right forearm. He
received his Ph. D in chemical engineering from MIT. When he read of my involvement in the
Charleston Gazette-Mail,
he came to my office and thanked me. He said, "I remember the Nazi's coming into Hungary waving
the Bible in one hand and burning books with the other."

-- Lee Platt

As a former teacher, I always find it astonishing and alarming that so-called "educators" think
it is their right to ban books that deal with life's struggles and help teach students how to think
for themselves.

-- Anne Rapp

The appalling attack on one of our country's treasures by two people who clearly don't
understand what they have read (I personally have doubts that either of them even read the book)
has infuriated me. The Bluest Eye
is the first Morrison book I read, followed by almost every other book she has written.
She remains my favorite author.